looking for a modding "mentor"

[Ambrya]

I've been trying to play around with the toolset and reading/viewing tutorials, and I just can't quite seem to really get going on making my own mods.

 

I'm usually quite good at intuiting this sort of thing, just seeing what others have done and picking it up myself, but I think the tutorials just don't suit my learning style. I feel like Helen Keller at the well waiting for sudden understanding. I'm sure that once I have that revelation of, "Oh, THAT'S how it works" I'll be off and running, but I just haven't had it yet.

 

If someone would be willing to mentor me through some of the basics until I grasp the concept, please PM me. Thanks!

[Ambrya]

As an example, here's the sort of thing that I'm stumbling upon, tiny things that are probably insanely obvious and unspeakably stupid, and yet I just can't seem to figure them out.

 

I want to edit a morph that someone else made. It has one teeny-tiny little clipping problem and the creator of the mod doesn't seem to be responding to the users who have pointed the problem out. I figure a good way to get my feet wet with modding would be to fix that little problem, right?

 

I've ready and watched the tutorials on creating a morph from scratch. I get them, I can do that. But I really like this existing morph that someone else already did. I don't want to create a new one. I want to fix the one that is already there. I suppose if I played around long enough, I could figure out how to rebuild the existing morph I want to edit from scratch. But surely there must be some way for me to edit the existing morph, no?

 

But when I attempt to open the .mor file, I can't seem to get the morph editor to appear, nor can I figure out how to access the .mor file from within the morph editor.

 

It's almost embarrassing to ask this, because I'm sure the answer is ridiculously obvious and more experienced modders are probably rolling their eyes thinking, "omg noob!". But that's what I mean when I say I just can't quite figure it out.

[hdhd]

You will need the source of the morph file otherwise you won't be able to edit it. It is the same with scripts if the author of the mod removed the nss file you won't be able to view the source. But you still can view the values just create a new morph using the given values or alternatively change the values of the existing morph (but you won't be able to see the morph so you don't know what exactly you changed)

[Ambrya]

You will need the source of the morph file otherwise you won't be able to edit it. It is the same with scripts if the author of the mod removed the nss file you won't be able to view the source. But you still can view the values just create a new morph using the given values or alternatively change the values of the existing morph (but you won't be able to see the morph so you don't know what exactly you changed)

 

Thank you, hdhd. That was driving me nuts. Now I don't feel quite so stupid, since it wasn't actually me missing something obvious but rather me attempting to do something that simply can't be done (though I guess if it was obvious that it couldn't be done, then I should probably still feel stupid.)

 

I don't have the source files, and the original modder hasn't been heard from for months. I was attempting to create a new morph using the existing values, but there seemed to be stuff missing, or I hadn't actually found it yet. Don't suppose there's a cut-and-paste option somewhere that I haven't found yet? Seeing as I'm not yet familiar with all the settings, editing the values without being able to see what I'm doing doesn't seem like a very good option.

[hdhd]

Without the source you really cannot do much so there isn't any "copy-and-paste" solution. I don't know much about creating faces myself maybe someone knows a better way to edit an existing face.

 

I found on bioware a thread: http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/8/index/279147 This might explain better why it isn't possible.

[Ambrya]

Thanks again, hdhd. Looks like I chose the wrong "tiny fix" for my first attempt at a project. Grrr.

 

I guess I have one more option, since the mod in question ("Natural Alistair" -- the flaw is the tiny bit of clipping where a hank of hair falls over the left brow) is actually based on another morph from Improved Atmosphere, basically that face with different hair. I know which hair she used, so if I can get the face from Imp.Atmosphere, I might be able to cobble something together. Basically I'm looking to change the brow in the hopes of eliminating the clipping problem.

 

Edit: Feh! Got the source file from IA, changed the hair, hair color and stubble color to match the Natural Alistair mod, then started fiddling with the settings and found there is no possible configuration of the brow height/width that would eliminate the clipping problem without completely changing the face into something much less satisfactory. There is one other close-but-not-quite hair style that won't clip, but I don't like it. All that fuss and bother for nothing. But at least I got to have a look-see at what I was doing.

 

Now I have to figure out which of my other little pet projects I want to see done would be the best candidate for my attempting to muddle my way through things.